About customer classes

A customer class groups customers that have similar characteristics.

A customer class groups customers that have similar characteristics. You can divide customers into classes based on the types of goods or services the customers buy or on other properties, such as the customers’ currency and payment methods.

You specify a customer class when you create a customer account, which causes the system to fill in the values of the class for the customer. Any of these default values can be overridden.

Generally, the first customer class you define is the default customer class. When you create a customer class, the values of the default customer class are automatically filled in, but any of them can be overridden. The default customer class is initially specified as the customer class for a new customer account, but you can change it to any other class.

In this topic, you will read about the default customer class, customer classes in general, and the default values provided by customer classes. Separate sections describe the currency and printing settings that are provided by the customer class.

Default customer class

When you set up customer classes, we recommend that you first create the default customer class: the customer class that has values that are shared by most customer classes and customers. You define the default customer class (and all other classes) in the Customer classes (AR201000) window, and then specify the class as your default customer class in the Customer ledger preferences (AR101000) window.

When you create a new customer class, the elements of this class will be automatically populated with the values specified for the default customer class, which speeds data entry. You can override these values as needed.

Other customer classes

You also create non-default customer classes by using the Customer classes window. As mentioned above, when you create a customer class, it is initially populated with the values of the default customer class, any of which can be overridden.

In addition to using the default customer class, you can create a new customer class based on an existing customer class by using commands from the Edit menu in the Customer classes window. You can copy the settings of a particular customer class and paste them to create another class, or you can create a template for multiple similar customer classes.

Default values provided by the customer class

Customer classes provide default values for individual customer accounts, so users can create customer accounts more easily.

When you create a customer class, you must specify the class ID and description, and you can decide which additional elements to specify for the class, including the following:

  • General settings: The country of customers, the taxation settings (including the VAT zone for the class), and the salesperson responsible for dealing with customers of the class
  • Delivery elements: The carrier whose services will be used, and the shipping terms
  • Credit verification settings: The credit verification rules and the credit limit
  • Financial settings: The Payment info from AutoPay payment terms, the statement cycle, the payment method, the overdue charges, and the currency
  • Print and email details: The statement type; whether customers’ documents should be sent electronically or by postal mail
  • General ledger accounts: The accounts from the chart of accounts and the subaccounts (if any) to be used to record your operations with the customers of the class
  • Mailings: The list of mailings to which you want to subscribe customers of the class

When you create a new customer account by using the Customers (AR303000) window, by default, the elements of this window have the values that were specified for the default customer class. If the new customer should be assigned to a more specific class, select the class, which changes the default values to those that were specified for the selected class. You can override any value provided by the class.

With customers, as with classes, you can use the copy-and-paste functionality to create similar customer accounts. If you have to override many values of the customer account similarly for multiple customers, consider creating a new customer class with those values specified.

Default currency settings

A customer class can hold the default currency and the default currency rate to be used for customer accounts. We recommend that you select a foreign currency for a customer class only if most customers of the class use this currency. By default, users may not override the currency on customer documents, to reduce the chance of input errors related to currency choice. If some customers may use a non-default currency and non-default rate type on individual documents, you can allow currency and rate overriding for those customers by selecting the Enable currency override and Enable rate override check boxes in the Customers window.

If want to allow override of the currency and the rate by default for all customers of the class, select these check boxes in the Customer classes window for the customer class.

Default printing and emailing settings

A customer class can provide the default settings that permit or deny mass-printing and emailing of invoices, notes, and statements. Settings that control printing and emailing preferences of customers are located under the Print and email settings section on the Invoicing settings tab of the Customer classes window. For instance, if you want to be able to print at once the invoices for all customers of a customer class by using the Send invoices window, you must select the Print invoices check box for the customer class. This makes the documents of these customers available for mass-printing. You can override this setting for individual customers of the class, if needed.

Preferred locale setting

You can group the customers who prefer the same language to one customer class. For this class, you specify a locale that is associated with the language in the Locale field of the Customer classes window.

Note

The system will assign the locale to the new customer accounts automatically when you select the customer class for the account in the Customers window. For existing customers, you need to manually select the preferred locale for each account.

Assigning a locale to a customer account allows you to print documents for the customer in preferred language.

Next steps in preliminary configuration

Once you have defined the default customer class and all other customer classes that will be used to ease the entry of new customer accounts, you have defined all the Visma Net entities that you need to set up before you begin creating customer accounts. Next, you need to consider Customer ledger settings as they relate to customer management and make any needed adjustments, as described in About adjusting customer ledger preferences.

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Last modified February 19, 2026